The Hama massacre (Arabic: مجزرة حماة) occurred in February 1982, when the Syrian Arab Army and the Defense Companies, under the orders of the country's president, Hafez al-Assad, conducted a scorched earth operation against the town of Hama in order to quell a revolt by the Muslim Brotherhood against the government of Hafez al-Assad. The Hama massacre, carried out by the Syrian Army supposedly under commanding General Rifaat al-Assad, President Assad's younger brother, effectively ended the campaign begun in 1976 by Sunni Islamic groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood, against Assad's government.